Widmark was the real deal

If you enjoyed Heath Ledger's turn as the Joker in "The Dark Knight," you'll dig Richard Widmark's Tommy Udo, a man equally dedicated to chaos. Seething, barely able to sit still, knifing informants in the belly, throwing cripples down the stairs, Udo relishes every drop of mayhem he creates.

This was an auspicious debut: Widmark earned an Oscar nomination for his role in the 1947 thriller "Kiss of Death," which screens at 7:30 p.m. Monday, opening a month-long tribute to Widmark at the Parkway Theater in Minneapolis. He would continue to mesmerize for more than 50 years until his death in March.

Born in Sunrise Township, in Minnesota's Chisago County, Widmark appeared in more than 100 movies but shied away from the spotlight, eschewing the talk shows that are the boon or bane of celebrities. He was comfortable in noir, an icon in oft-forgotten westerns (though he was inducted into two western halls of fame), melodramas, TV and even radio over the years. "I think a performer should do his work and then shut up," he famously told the New York Times, and might have been complaining about Marilyn Monroe, whom he loathed working with in "Don't Bother to Knock" (Aug. 25).

But Widmark was more than just a regular leading man -- he was edgy, fascinating at all times and capable of tremendous range. He knew to season his villains with a bit of heroics and give his heroes an edge of villainy. In fact, in three of the titles in this series, Widmark's characters aren't bad, but complex individuals on the wrong end of the law who end up doing the right thing.

In both "Don't Bother to Knock" and "Slattery's Hurricane" (Aug. 4), he plays pilots, misdirected men who are eventually redeemed. The western "Yellow Sky" (Aug. 18) is his other heavy character, part of a larger gang of thieves, and is the only one whose motives are consistent -- he's wrong, sure, but the eventual redemption of his cohorts is forced. And in "Panic in the Streets" (Aug. 11), Widmark is the hero, a doctor racing against time to stop the spread of plague in New Orleans. He's the best thing in every one -- better than Monroe, even.

Widmark was the real deal, a man who approached acting as a job -- he showed up, put in a good day's work and went home. But he could get into the shoes of a doctor or a bank robber and make you understand that at the end of the day, their bones ache just like ours do.